1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to transmission of data objects and, more particularly, to marshalling and unmarshalling extensible markup language schema annotations to a business object model framework.
2. Description of the Related Art
Developers use frameworks for application development. These frameworks typically include an architecture and an application programming interface (API). Java™ 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is an example framework from Sun Microsystems for building distributed enterprise applications. J2EE™ services are performed in a middle tier between a user's machine and the enterprise's databases and legacy information systems.
When a data object in an application framework is transmitted from a sending device to a receiving device, the object is typically converted into a transmission format. The transmission format may be in a binary format or a text format. However, converting a data object from one format to another, and then reconverting the information back to the original format, can be a difficult task. The sending code must include instructions for converting the data object to the transmission format, and the receiving code must include instructions for rebuilding the object.
Currently, when a developer is writing code for sending and/or receiving a data object, the developer must re-invent the code for converting to and from the transmission format based on the specific type and structure of the data object. More specifically, the receiving code will expect certain object types and structures. If the receiving code receives a new object type, the receiving code will not know how to rebuild the data object.